The Brain Is A Beautiful Yet Annoying Paradox - Use It Wisely.

Understanding how your brain works helps you use it better and avoid pitfalls

‘Your brain is not for thinking’

Reading this first chapter in Lisa Feldman Barrett's book ‘Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain’, stopped me in my tracks.

Huh? But i love thinking. Humans are pretty good at thinking. Why isn't our brain built to think? Tell me!

Here's what I understood as I kept reading and continued my own research.

1. Your brain is built to keep you alive

Building on my 20+ years neuroscience knowledge, self-development through therapy, and work as a therapeutic and art-bssed coach, I've understood this point at a deeper level.

Our brains scan our internal and external environments, predict what will happen next, and motivate action that keeps us alive enough to respond and flex to the next prediction. It's an adaptive process in itself - learning by trial and error.

At the most fundamental level, this is what's always going on. As discussed on the recent Andrew Huberman podcast - The Huberman Lab - in his interview with Lisa Feldman Barrett, we respond to events - whether threats, challenges or opportunities - that appear in our environment.

Thinking is one way we use the predictions our minds and bodies (feelings or sensations) register. We consider the context we're in, and select from different behaviours and actions available to us - we do something or nothing.

This isn't always conscious - sometimes it comes across as instinct, short cuts or the ‘right’ thing to do in the moment. So are you thinking or responding? Likely both.

If we always waited to register those sensations consciously every time, and then respond, it might be too late. We may not get another chance.

It turns out that our predictive, adaptive brain is great at keeping us alive.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

Consider this example:

• Whilst lying in bed at night, you hear a noise from outside the bedroom - suddenly your hearing is heightened and on alert

• You hear small footsteps and freeze to take in more information

• Your cat saunters into the bedroom without a care in the world

• You breathe a sigh of relief that it really was your cat — you had suspected this after the initial noise registered so waited for more info

• In this case, your brain predictions and related actions were right

• Now you notice your heart rate is elevated. Your muscles are tense. Your breathing is shallow

• You take a few minutes to calm yourself down and get back to getting ready to sleep

As an owner of two cats, I know this scenario very well. And I've responded in several different ways over the years.

Depending on the context, your past experiences, and your ability to notice or ignore physical feelings and sensations, this scenario might have played out very differently:

• If you had just been burgled, you might have leapt out of bed, ready to defend yourself from an intruder.

• If you were used to noisy cats, this sound may not have registered with you at all, and you’d have carried on thinking about what to have for breakfast tomorrow.

The key is that your brain is constantly scanning data in its dark box (your skull) from its internal and external environments.

It determines what is useful or meaningful information out of everything (salience), and predicts what is going on based on that data.

Your brain is always preparing you to do something about that representation if needed.

Thinking is in service of this process. At different levels of the ‘let's keep this person alive’ foundation, thinking helps us consider other, smarter ways to stick around.

Now, thinking can work really well for us, when we're firing on all cylinders, defining goals, making choices, and getting things done that get us where we want to go in a sustainable way.

But it also gets out of kilter - we get caught up in unhelpful thinking loops, our predictions can be off, or we tip into anxiety or sadness, leaving us stuck or focused on unhelpful actions and desires.

We feel uneasy, dissatisfied and fed up with the state of our experiences and choices.

Once I understood the beauty of the brain and nervous system - how it keeps us alive - but also the annoying ways it can go wrong in service of this process (so many it turns out), I realised I could and should choose a different way to move through life.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

2. If you're a curious and open-minded person, this is the place for you

These insights, from the past, my current experiences, working with coaching clients, and just being a curious neuro nerd are what I'll share in the updates and lessons in our little corner of the Internet.

We'll help each other through life's rich pageant and be curious together. What is true, is that you can have more control and awareness than you realise.

Whilst retraining as a therapeutic and art-based coach, and building my online business, I'm reminded that I'm not the only one curious about how people work.

There are others looking to get unstuck, feel less overwhelmed, or just understand themselves and those around them better.

By starting this Substack, I'm creating a community to learn from each other, where we can be ourselves, share what we want to change (or maintain!), and learn how to do it in a practical, fun way.

Oh, and have a laugh whilst doing it! Things are pretty tough out there, and I know we're all affected in different ways.

But I invite you join me and others like you who want to build a better brain and improve life one change at a time.

Let's jump in and be excellent to ourselves and each other!

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

3. Weekly updates, lessons, and more

To that point, you can look forward to weekly updates and lessons from me about ways to harness your brain, mind and body to adapt and change.

I'll cover topics such as personal development, lifestyle, relationships and work.

Plus, whilst I work out what the heck Substack can do and how to use it (seriously, there's always a new thing), I'll send notes, threads and share other insights, lessons, and fun stuff to get get your brain, mind and body going.

Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash

4. What the heck are you waiting for?

If you've read this far, well done. You definitely win a prize of some sort. I award you 50 patience points - hold them dearly for future use.

Oh and please do subscribe. This whole adventure will work better with you in it. Otherwise I'm just typing into the void. That's fine but kinda sad.

Hit the subscribe button below, to join me and your fellow neuro nerds on this journey together.

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If you've liked this update, share it with your buddies and/or with someone who needs to read it right now.

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Let me know what you're keen to learn or talk about in the comments below or on chat.

This is your space too, so let's enjoy it together.

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Take care,

Sabrina Ahmed

Burnout Coach | Neuroscientist | Art-based Practitioner